Seeing Bobby Kennedy in Barack Obama
Forty years after RFK's assassination, Barack picks up where Bobby left off.
Hope, like greatness, is a thing some men have thrust upon them. They emerge as repositories for the finer yearnings of a confused and bitter nation, a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected not as the people we are, but as the people we would like to be—and may, because of them, inch slightly closer to becoming. Whether or not they are worthy of such faith is, in the end, less important than the fact that they inspire us to be more worthy ourselves.
This is why it's a mistake to dismiss Obama as being "only" inspirational. Despite the example set by our current president, competence is not all that difficult to come by in Washington, DC. (In fact, our permanent civil service could get most things done much more effectively without any political leadership at all.) But someone who can make us believe that this country of ours might actually pull itself together and become a little bit more compassionate or a little bit more just, someone who encourages us to dedicate ourselves to that goal rather than to just lowering our taxes or paying less for gasoline—that's something found far more rarely inside the Beltway.
For my generation, I suppose that someone was Bobby Kennedy, though I'm not sure I realized it at the time. On the war, there wasn't much difference between Kennedy and his rival on the left, Eugene McCarthy. They both wanted to get us out of Vietnam. VP Hubert Humphrey may have been the insider candidate, but he came out of the highly progressive Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (as did McCarthy, and late Senator Paul Wellstone), and hewed to a liberal platform that would seem radical by the standards of today's post-Democratic Leadership Council Democratic Party. By contrast, Bobby Kennedy, in many ways, had only recently evolved into a true progressive. And some saw Kennedy, who got into the race only after Lyndon Johnson's poor performance in the New Hampshire primary, as an opportunist who was strong on rhetoric but short on substance.
Even Kennedy's most visible virtue, his deep concern for the poor, had its problems. The Kennedy poverty program, run by Sargent Shriver and taken up by Lyndon Johnson after Jack Kennedy's assassination, quickly became a pork-barrel operation. In Chicago, for example, millions of federal dollars were pumped into Mayor Richard Daley's machine. None of the programs were conceived to threaten the status quo, which made them too tame for a lot of activists in the late 1960s. They were bootstrap projects, where the government would provide the poor with job training, education, and health care to help them elevate themselves to a point where they could jump off into the middle class. For the most part, this never happened.
Two parts of the poverty program—Head Start, the program for young children, and Neighborhood Legal Services, which provides free legal assistance to low-income residents—did prove lasting and truly valuable. And some funds managed to filter through to the likes of Saul Alinsky, the legendary community organizer on the South Side of Chicago who advocated confrontation with the Daley machine, and encouraged his groups to engage in civil disobedience if need be. (Alinsky himself, however, knew how to work the system when he needed to. He reminded me of an old-school labor organizer—talking tough but in the end always willing to cut a deal in the back room. And I can remember radicals attacking him for his lack of revolutionary fervor, in the same way, incidentally, they attacked Ralph Nader, who was seen as a patsy for the legal profession. "A guy has to be a political idiot," Alinsky scoffed at radicals back then, "to say all power comes out of the barrel of a gun when the other side has the guns."
Saul Alinsky believed that power flowed up from the streets and was there for the taking, if only people believed they could do so. By 1968, Bobby Kennedy had taken up the idea of "decentralization" (in part, as an alternative to welfare), championing a new Community Action Program (not unlike a more radical model advanced by Students for a Democratic Society), which would allow federal anti-poverty projects—and funds—to be run by the populations they served.
Maybe that had something to do with what began to happen during Bobby Kennedy's brief presidential campaign, when he went out into the streets in the spring of 1968. Or maybe it was just something about the man. My friend Jack Newfield, the late Village Voice reporter, used to say that Kennedy was more priest than politician. Newfield often accompanied Kennedy during a campaign that took him to Indian reservations, into Appalachia, through Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant or East L.A., to small gatherings with family farmers, to classrooms where he sat down and talked with children as if they were actual human beings. Newfield recalled that on a trip through Watts a few days before RFK's death, "He said to me, 'I want you to see what I see. And I see this ecstasy in the eyes of blacks and Mexican Americans.'" The television cameras saw it, too, as they followed him to places they usually wouldn't dream of going, and millions of Americans in their living rooms saw it. You can still see it today, in the old footage—as he walks or rides through the urban streets, people reached out to touch him as they would a talisman, as if the touch alone would empower and dignify them.
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What a bunch of BS....Some of us actually read and know history!!!
The Kennedy's are not saints or icons of anything, history has passed judgement....Bobby Kennedy only acted because Martin Luther King made him act.
Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson are the heroes!!!!!
Bobby Kennedy was just another cheap politician, just like Obama
I will agree with the author, he comes across as a very inspirational figure. I do not see how you could have read his platform/issues and considered his proposals for change modest. They are heavily weighing in on a "socialistic state" of providing for Americans from birth to adulthood while undermining our own capitalistic system. At a time when our economy is tanking, maybe the author should tell us what he proposes, since I have yet to figure out his plan to get us out of this mess outside of heavily taxing investors and corporations. And saying you will take it out of the hands of the private citizen and decisions will be made at the government level is ridiculous. Government can't even get themselves straight, do we want them handling our economy as well?
As to his credentials, Sen. Robert Kennedy might not have held office as a senator for very long, but he was the U.S. Attorney General and an advisor to Pres. Kennedy. Do you truly believe Sen. Obama has equal qualifications at the top level of government?
the kennedys understood the economy, which is the foundation for EVERY social issue under the sun. JFK cut taxes, allowing african americans to start businesses and not be crippled by paying blood money to the government. obama adheres to only the bastardized version of the kennedys' ideology....the frosting without the cake.
I'm gonna play gotcha!!
James Ridgeway is a lazy journalist. A quick search @ Wikipedia indicates that LBJ did not lose the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic primary.
I forgot to add... they gave Sen. Clinton hell for even making reference to Sen. Kennedy still campaigning during the month of June. I wonder who will come after you for even bringing up the entire incident in your article? And you think you will have the freedom of the press for long under Sen. Obama's presidency? Dream on.
Cramos: Are you aware that Lyndon Johnson plunged America into the Viet Nam war? Are you aware that Viet Nam was a war John F. Kennedy would not have fought? Are you aware that Lyndon Johnson spent his time picking bombing targets in the Oval Office? Are you aware of John F. Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis?
"Bobby Kennedy was just another cheap politician, just like Obama." Well Cramos, some of us really do read and know history. We know and appreciate what Obama stands for, and that is why he won the Democratic nomination. That is also why he will be our next President.
Your Obama comment is really only a cheap shot isn't it? I suggest you read and get to know history.
Genevieve, You think you have freedom of the press under Bush Cheney? Dream on...
You might want to refresh your memory. Our initial entry into Vietnam started in 1959. And if you want to bring up the Cuban Missile crisis,("Some historians have blamed Kennedy for the missile crisis developing in the first place, claiming that the president made an enemy of Cuba and presented a weak, inexperienced image that encouraged the Soviet Union to take advantage.
"), maybe you would enlighten us more on the Bay of Pigs fiasco or Khrushchev pummeling Pres. Kennedy.(Google Kennedy Talked Krushchev Triumphed).
I still hold a lot of respect for Pres. Kennedy, but it wasn't Camelot.
What a dumb comparison this one is. Bobby Kennedy was nothing like BHO. Bobby Kennedy took on the mob, led his brother through the confrontation with the USSR over cuban missles, and believed in equality. BHO hangs with and does business with organized crime (see Rezko), wants to negotiate with dictators who want us destroyed (presumably to negotiate our terms of surrender) and believes not in equality but in restitution for past inequality. The difference is unmistakable.
Why yes, do not confuse freedom of the press and what comes out of the White House. Was McClellan's book not published? How many journalists can still voice their opinions, and many depicting the White House in a negative light (which I am not saying isn't undeserving). Do you not see the labels the MSM has created towards individuals who question Sen. Obama? Racists, rednecks, uneducated... and I could go on. Any candidate or person who says one thing, if they can even make it into a story somehow linking it to Sen. Obama whether directly or indirectly, it is blown out of proportion and spread all over the news.
Do you truly believe that is unbiased and fair reporting or agents of propaganda?
pleased to read all these progressive comments... WTF?
I see a more soft spoken Jesse Jackson, that's all. And that wife!! NO BAMA, NO WAY. We will not be duped by an adoring ultra liberal media. President Clinton was right, this guy has no business even running! UNQUALIFIED
Can we stop this Kennedy adoration once and for all? All crooks and hypocrites, boot-leggers and drug addicts. NOT TO MENTION bad drivers near bridges. Never did anything good for the country.
cramos,
Speaking the way you are, I am sure GWB is your hero.
I'm sorry, but I do not see Robert Kennedy in Barak Obama. Senator Kennedy seemed to go through a transformational experience after the death of his brother. No longer was he JFK's 'fixer', but he appears to have developed an authentic compassion for those less fortunate. Kennedy unlike Obama went to places like Kentucky and saw for himself the plight of poverty. He exposed the need to address these issues. These experiences seemed to galvanize him to act. Senator Obama is too contrived, he does not appear authentic. He seems too opportunistic and one should not try to emulate a icon....best to find your own way.
Bobby Kennedy nor JFK for that matter ever flipped off their opponents and then was able to get away with it.
The media helped Obama big time even though he did his disgusting act in public, twice and on tape.
Gross.....
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/04/17/obama-stands-accused-of-conduct-...
Outside of African-Americans, the RFK constituency largely supported Hillary Clinton.
More like the Peanut farmer Junior.
Obama will cower to the degree tha he'd make the "Peanut Farmer" look like Teddy Roosevelt.
870+ days and Obama still refuses to visit Iraq!
Chicken ..........
40 years down the road, I cannot believe how afraid so many of us are to imagine something better than this nightmare we've now found ourselves in. When I hear people sound so bitter and suspicious of Barack and the possibility he may prove true, it is as though they have long since squashed the part of themselves that does hope for something better. Thanks for the article.
"this country of ours might actually pull itself together and become a little bit more compassionate or a little bit more just"
I hope you realize this great country is already more compassionate and just than almost any other in the world and certainly so for countries similar in size. Room to improve? Of course. But at least acknoweldge and appreciate that it is rather "together," "compassionate" and "just" even with Republicans inthe White house.
Are you impervious to the contradictions set up within a couple of paragraphs of each other:
First this throwaway:
Despite the example set by our current president, competence is not all that difficult to come by in Washington, DC. (In fact, our permanent civil service could get most things done much more effectively without any political leadership at all.)
Then this:
The Kennedy poverty program, run by Sargent Shriver and taken up by Lyndon Johnson after Jack Kennedy's assassination, quickly became a pork-barrel operation. In Chicago, for example, millions of federal dollars were pumped into Mayor Richard Daley's machine. None of the programs were conceived to threaten the status quo, which made them too tame for a lot of activists in the late 1960s. They were bootstrap projects, where the government would provide the poor with job training, education, and health care to help them elevate themselves to a point where they could jump off into the middle class. For the most part, this never happened.
Big Government is the one thing possibly then big business -- and if you can't grok something that basic you are truly a lost cause.
While we talk about Bobby Kennedy being seen in Barack Obama, why is nobody seeing Osama Bin Laden in Barack Obama?????
Barack Obama couldn't carry Bobby Kennedy's shoes. This man is about as shallow as they come and people just can't see it. But come November, he will have a rude awakening.
Well Genevieve, Bush/Cheney haven't been able to take away freedom of the press, but they've done their level best to consolidate it and thereby eliminate diversity. There is now a right-wing slant to almost all newspapers, radio stations and television channels with the exception of PBS and possibly MSNBC. Even the small-town newspaper I work for has been purchased by a HUGE corporation that dictates editorial policy.
Diversity in American media is all but gone because big corporations have been allowed to gobble up everything they can afford to buy. Rupert Murdock's Fox News is a shining example of their new strategy of bias in the news. It's not hard to see the line between honest reporting and political propaganda.
Remember the days when the right shouted protests about the so-called "Liberal news media?" You don't hear that term anymore because the right solved their media problem, they bought it.
Have you not noticed the heavy coverage of Reverend Wright and the lack of equal coverage on Pastor Hagee or Parsley? That's bias in my book. The right-wing media chooses where to shine the spotlight, and the rest of the news monkeys fall in line so as not to appear to miss the "breaking story" or the "Lead" story.
The White House may not have total control over the media but they certainly have it on the floor with their boot on its throat.
Was Bobby a sexit like Obama? I don`t see anything Kennedy in Obama.Sorry sweetie.
Floyd,
Please enlighten me. How do you see Bin Laden in Barack?
No way, Jose. Bobby Kennedy served in the Navy, confronted the mob, served as attorney general advising his brother on critical issues as the Cuban Missile crisis. He really identified with the people, going to Appalachia himself to observe the stark conditions there and actively supporting Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers strike in California. He was a doer. Obama? Well, he was a "community activist" whatever that is.
I was pretty young when MLK and RFK were assassinated in 1968, 7 years old. But I already had a sense of the importance of the changes they were trying to bring about (I think politics are part of your genetic structure if you are raised in Chicago as I was). All of my grade school teachers were young college grads who, not surprisingly, though not in any heavy handed way, imparted the ideas of JFK, MLK, RFK to me and my generation. I believed deep in my heart that we could live in a society where everyone would be treated equally, in a world where we woudl care for our families and our neighbors, next door and around the world. These were men of great vision carrying a message of peace. In the decades that followed the violent and senseless silencing of those voices, I became more and more disillusioned with the level of corruption in our politicians, the (almost proud) selfishness that came to characterize us as a people, and as violence, most clearly exemplified in the Bush administration, came to be our way of dealing with the world. That line to the 60's, my teachers, those great men, seemed lost forever.
On Tuesday evening that all changed. I wept, not just for the joy of the moment, but mourning for the knowledge of how many years and lives have been lost before we could finally get back to that point 40 years ago. The point where one of our leaders could stand before us and talk about hope and being human again, about caring for families and (horrors) even people outside our borders.
Obama is not RFK he is the legacy that JFK, MLK, and RFK (and so many people of that era) left to MY generation. It took us a while to get here......but here we are.
Who can honestly know what will happen in November, but I pray everyday.
You're hallucinating. I knew Bobby Kennedy and Obama is no Bobby Kennedy. There are many more similarities between the Clinton campaign and the Bobby Kennedy campaign, including the Liberal Wing of the Democratic Party hating Bobby Kennedy ... the fixed convention in Chicago ... and the running out of time aspects of Bobby's last campaign. On the other hand, Obama, prodigy of the current Mayor Dailey's Chicago Combine, has a lot in common with the party insiders of 1968 who backed Humphrey. Obama hasn't the passion of Robert Kennedy, a passion for the poor, for children, for the marginalized of society. Obama's constituency is made of up college grads earning over $50,000 a year and the entire black vote because, yes, as Gerry Ferraro pointed out at great risk to herself, Obama is black. I guess you have no idea who Bobby Kennedy is. Too bad. His death was a turning point in our political history and we have been swimming in mediocrity ever since. Shame on your for linking a corrupt Chicago politician with Robert F. Kennedy.
I'm with Joe and Brian. Well said gentlemen.
Total crap. The Kennedy's came from a crooked family. Obama is just a prop for the democrats.
So a Democrat offering a tax cut isn't good enough? Who offers to blur the lines between parties (reaching across the isle, pfft! Why does there even have to BE an isle, politically speaking?), to "weird" for you? Someone with a name like many Jewish kids (NEWS FLASH: Barack comes form Hebrew Baruch, there were Jews b4 there were Muslims). Someone who grew up not on the mainland, even (gasp) partly outside the U.S.? Are you that afraid of something different? Kenedy may not have been a saint, and neither is BHO admittedly, but you have to admit he inspires ppl, and surviving Illinois politics with only Rezko and Wright as onhangers was a feat. Whether u like or loathe him as a politician, the dude's a badass. You try beating the Clintons!
Has anybody at Mother Jones noticed that the 60s are over?
This is an outright lie. I graduated from High School in 1968. Bobby Kennedy was simply JFK's younger brother... Helped up by JFK's nepotism. He may have been 'inspirational' to 1960's Liberal Democrats, but it stopped there.
The Obama comparison is to be expected - Liberal Democrats are on the rise again... But the more accurate comparison is to Jimmy Carter. Remember gas rationing? Iran Hostages? 18% mortgages? 10% unemployment? 12 % inflation? Soviet invasion of Afganistan?
Those are the facts of Liberal rule.
s
Bill Sanford is right! Good write up Bill.
I wonder if B. Hussein Obama's candidacy will end the same way as RFKs?
Oh Diane, thanks to your compassionate conservative president and the deaths of more than 500,000 civilians in Iraq and 4000+ American souls....we're well aware that the 60's are indeed over.
Bill Sanford is so right, so very right...(slow down on the natty light buddy)
We don't have gas rationing (unless you consider not being able to afford it a form of rationing, right?) we have $4.00+ a gallon gas. Thank you Republicans.
We don't have 18% mortgages....hell, we don't have mortgages anymore, we have foreclosures. Thanks Republicans!
No hostages in Iran...thank god, just more than 4,000 dead soldiers and countless dead innocent women and children in Iraq. Thank you Republicans (oh, and Hillary too).
We don't have 10% unemployment, we have plenty of jobs, they just don't pay in real dollars anymore...
Median income for non-elderly households (those headed by someone under 65) fell again in 2006, declining by $275, or 0.5 percent. Median income for non-elderly households declined for the fifth consecutive year and was $2,000 (or 3.7 percent) lower in 2005 than in the recession year of 2001.
The poverty rate, at 12.6 percent, remained well above its 11.7 percent rate in 2001.
The median earnings of full-time year-round female workers fell for the third straight year, declining by $427, or 1.3 percent.
Invasion of Afghanistan by Soviets? No, we engineered one ourselves...and about as successfully as the Soviets. Thanks Repubs.
AND THESE ARE THE FACTS OF REPUB. RULE
Aloha, the Kennedys gave us Vietnam and 50,000 plus dead American soldiers.
Obama is just another Jimmy Carter.
James Ridgeway, isn't he the guy who first saw Jesus Christ in the cinnamon bun in the Nashville coffee shop?
Look up SEATO
(President Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1953-1959)was the primary force behind the creation of SEATO, which expanded the concept of anti-communist collective defense to Southeast Asia.)
Yerkiddinright
Gas prices started shooting up AFTER the democrats took control of congress.
95% of all mortgage holders are making their payments. Boo Hoo for the idiots who signed up for an ARM.
3000 + dead on 911. Thank you Bill Clinton for feckless leadership. But most of all thank you Jimmy Carter for being the catalyst of the problems in the Middle East
We have a market based economy. You get paid what your worth. I’m hardly a rocket scientist but my income has risen on an average of 8% to 10% annually for the past 33 years. What am I doing right that you are not?
Poverty rates don’t reflect that more people considered “on poverty” today also have a home, own an automobile, have air conditioning, and cable TV.
Our “poor” have better lives than most of the worlds middle class.
Female workers and minorities won the lottery in corporate America. But then again you do need to have some higher education. Only 25% of adult Americans have any post high school education. Like I said, we have a market based economy. You get paid what you are worth. You can thank Clinton for NAFTA and the loss of manufacturing jobs for all the folks who didn’t make the effort to take some night classes and improve their employability. Speaking frankly, there are a lot of people who are not worth their salt. They are the ones who usually make the most noise as well.
I have no problem giving Sen. Obama a B+ for his oratory skills. Other than that he is an empty suit, no real experience to speak of. His "new and fresh" ideas are nothing more than rebranded socialism. When listening to Sen. Obama, I am always reminded of Robert Preston playing the part of Professor Harold Hill in the Music Man.
Why are you so filled with hatred? And are you implying that McCain has anything resembling a progressive notion in his platform?
Okay..
Now the MEDIA has stepped WAY over the line. How in the world can anyone compare the Obama's to the Kennedy's... First JFK now Bobbie and then Michelle to Jackie..
The media ... has already won him the nomination... by not reporting facts in a timely manner. MSM Knew about Viper Wright... prior to the FIRST state primary...THEY DID NOT REPORT IT.
So you the American voter have been cheated again...
KING OBAMA will not be PRESIDENT, he will become the first AFRICAN AMERICAN to become KING OF THE UNITED STATES.
Any person who suggests that Democrats are responsible for rising oil prices is really a fool. What economic initiatives have the Democrats been able to get passed in the last year? Nothing gets past the Republicans in the Senate who have the power to block legislation. The president still has enough votes to override any veto. Gas prices are largely a result of the foolish economic policies and lack of coherent energy policy of the current Republican administration.
I don't see Bobby Kennedy in Barack Obama. Bobby had a warmth about him that Obama lacks. Sad to say, Obama does actually come across as cool and aloof. I'm just talking about perceptions, but perception can be very powerful.
